Right off the bat, I just want to say that I am no badass Dota player. I am mediocre at best. I only recently reached level 34, after about 4 months of playing Dota 2, and I have a win rate of 40.06%. So this is my humble build for Sniper. I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
Some (mediocre) stats concerning me and Sniper:
Matches: 60
Wins: 31
Ave Kills: 7.47
Ave Deaths: 9.13
Ave Assists: 14.47
Ave GPM: 371
Ave XPM: 444
Now I know my Average Kills does not seem that good, but since I have started using this build, it has started creeping up. My Average Kills for the past 10 games have been 9.3, with the highest being 25 kills and lowest being 2 kills.
So, without further ado, here is my build for Sniper:
Early Game
Boots of Speed
Tango
Town Portal(or 2)
Think this one is pretty self-explanatory. These are just good starting items for most heroes. The reason I tend to buy 2 TP scrolls is just because I like to have a spare on me at all times.
Early Mid
Power Treads
Shadow Blade
Power Treads are vital for the extra damage and attack speed it gives Sniper. This will stack well with later items. Shadow Blade because Sniper is a bit squishy and sometimes need to escape quickly. Even if they have Dust or Sentry Wards, Shadow Blade can still give Sniper a temporary boost in movement speed.
Mid
Maelstrom
Maelstrom predominantly for the extra attack speed and damage. Also a very useful item for farming.
Late Mid
Mask of Madness
Mjollnir
I first go for Mask of Madness simply because it is cheaper. This is nevertheless the most vital item of this build. When activated, Mask of Madness gives you a temporary attack speed boost of 110 plus a movement speed bonus of 17%. On top of that it also gives you permanent lifesteal of 15%. The amount of havoc Sniper can wreak in a team fight, and even on his own against multiple squishier heroes, with a Mask of Madness, is insane.
It does come with a warning, though, but you will have to read to the end to learn about it ;)
As for Mjollnir, I predominantly get it for the extra attack speed, making Mask of Madness even more potent.
Late
Moon Shard
The extra attack speed of course. Sniper is now getting to a point where he can take out towers in a matter of seconds when activating Mask of Madness.
Luxury
Daedalus
The crit damage when used with Mask of Madness is insane. At this point Sniper can take on 2 tanks on his own. You will have to get rid of one of the other items, though, as you will already have 6 items in your inventory plus a TP scroll in your backpack. It is difficult to choose what item to let go. I usually drop the Power Treads but then Sniper is INSANELY slow. I don’t know, it’s for you to decide.
The Small Print
As I have made abundantly clear, Mask of Madness is central to this build. Now you can do A LOT of damage with it, but it does have its cons. The first one would be that, when activated, it reduces your armour by 5 as well as silences you for 8 seconds. That would mean you cannot use your ult for those 8 seconds, which means an enemy or two might get away at times.
Also, with Power Treads, Mjollnir and Moon Shard, you are going to have ridiculous attack speed when you activate your Mask of Madness. If an enemy then activates their Blade Mail, you might be dead before you even notice because Sniper is just going fire off his gun that quickly.
But there you have it. This is my mostly successful Sniper build. I would love to hear your thoughts on it down below in the comments.
Thank you.
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I don't like boots of spped early game.
Why do you need them for ?
Agreed. Definitely go wraith band then treads then straight to maelstrom (maelstrom early is key to farming alot faster). If you are finding yourself needing to pick up shadow blade it means sniper probably is a bad pick for the game. Best thing to do would be to ask your supports to buy a glimmer for you.
Hey there nice little write up. I play Dota now for about 6 years and still try to improve - you are never finished with this game :)
Could you tell me what MMR you have?
To be honest, I have never been brave enough to play ranked matches, so I have no idea what my MMR is. Thank you for the compliment, though. ;)
Ah ok. You will get there!
Your guide has a few weaknesses, but in my opinion it is best in the beginning of your dota career to just try different builds and heroes out till you become really familiar with every aspect of the game.
Any advice on how you would tweak it to make it better?
I personally don't like mask of madness to begin with. Upgrading shadowblade to silver edge is an option to consider - it will help you break tanky opponents. Moonshard is really an Ultralategame Item, but I see someone else already mentioned it. But don't worry too much about builds quite yet. Just keep grinding and you will naturally improve :)
Thank you for sharing your thoughts :)
Moonshard is an item that you buys when you have nothing more to buy as you can eat it.
You would do much better with silver edge, satanic...
You can eat it, but then you actually lose attack speed as eating it does not give you as much attack speed as holding on to it. You might consider eating it when you want to get Deadalus. Just my opinion ;) Thank you for the comment.
Dragon Lance for early game
skadi for tankiness
Haha! Nice Game. Played it throughout my college life and I still play sometimes if I get time. But beware it is very addicting.
The classiest way to play sniper, farm dragon lance and Mjollnir, stay behind your teammates and shoot the shit out of the enemy. Upgrade the dragon lance for Hurricane pike as it also works like a force staff . Keep building damage throughout and most importantly, keep an eye out for the occasional blademail. :)